Crazy Love

by Michelle Pace

  As I wandered down River Street in a shocked haze, I was vaguely aware that Annabelle trailed behind me, but it didn’t slow me down. I had to put space between myself and my family before I did or said something stupid and made a jacked-up situation worse. And I wanted to get wasted. Not at the first bar I stumbled upon, though. Trip always used to say “never just wander into the first bar you see, Sammie. Always hold out for the second one. Trust me; the girls are always prettier and the liquor is always less watered down.” He was the resident expert, so I planned to take his advice. Truth is, I really didn’t care where the hell I drank, but I wasn’t about to get plowed at the hotel where Mama and her lover toasted Savannah’s upper crust. And if anyone deserved to get plowed, it was me.

  Annie called my name. I didn’t look back at her. Embarrassed and angry, I willed her to just go away. When I didn’t respond to her a second time, I heard her swear under her breath. For some reason I welcomed the sound of her heels which clicked rapidly on the aged cobblestones. Moments after I passed the first bar, I heard her exclaim “fuck it,” and the sound of the heels disappeared. I assumed she’d abandoned her quest for a front row seat at my breakdown. It turns out I was wrong about that; she’d just given up on her shoes.

  Trip’s “second bar rule” happened to work out well this time around. As I pushed the door open, the table of hotties right inside all looked up at the sound of the bell jingling. All three smiled at me and whispered fervently amongst themselves. Yep. Black tux— works every time.

  Bernie’s was a cool little joint housed in a converted warehouse. Darkly lit, the exposed brick walls were peppered with beer signs. There was enough of a clientele that my tux didn’t draw too much attention, but not enough that I couldn’t find a seat. Perfect. I owed Trip a shot for his expertise. Or not.

  I snagged a quiet booth near the back, and in moments a waitress appeared at my side.

  “What can I get ya, hon?” Her eyes briefly surveyed my tux with an amused smile that made it pretty clear I’d been pegged as a ‘big tipper.’ Normally it bugged me when strangers called me by a term of endearment, but tonight it was oddly comforting. It probably helped that she was so easy on the eyes.

  “We’ll have two pints of Shock Top and two dozen medium wings.” Annie interjected as she tossed her shoes and her sparkly purse onto the seat of opposite me. The waitress dropped the grin. She nodded and zipped away before I had a chance to object. Beer wasn’t going to be strong enough to dull my racing mind.

  “Annie…I think I just need to be alone.” I started, but she held up her hand.

  “You know what I think?” Her retort was swift and pointed.

  I folded my hands on the table in front of me. “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “I think you are a dangerous over-thinker. I think you have spent too many years wrapped up in your head. I think what you need is to talk this out with someone who isn’t too close to the situation.”

  I cocked an eyebrow, though I couldn’t argue with her forensic assessment of me. “You’re dating my brother. You’re hardly a neutral party.”

  “Sam…have you seriously not figured out that Trip and I are just friends?” My jaw nearly hit the table at her revelation.

  “What?”

  “He’s crazy in love with Violet. From what I can tell, she loves him, too.” She placed her elbows on the table and leaned forward for emphasis. I felt my eyes drawn to her chest-I couldn’t help myself. Her cleavage may as well have had a bull’s eye painted on it. “So go ahead and drink up. But I’m not leaving you to drink alone, so you may as well get used to the idea.”

  My eyebrows shot to my hairline, and I gaped at her. The waitress skidded by and shoved two pints onto our table without coming to a complete stop. “But how are you going to drive if you’re drinking too?”

  “Please. I could drink you under the table.” She set her beer down and reached into her purse for her buzzing phone. “So talk to me.”

  “I’m not sure what you expect me to say.” My palms felt sweaty at the image of laying her back on her bed, and I nearly dropped my beer. I took a long sip of the cold liquid to buy myself time to think. What was there to say? She knew everything about this situation that I did. I had no great insight into the calamity that was my existence, nor was I interested in seeking advice from the amateur Dear Abby across the table. I wasn’t in the mood to psychoanalyze my feelings. I wanted nothing more than to just forget.

  Her eyes were soft and full of sympathy I didn’t want. “I don’t expect anything in particular. There are no protocols for this situation, Sam.”

  I raked a hand through my hair and stared down at the beer. “Now I get why Trip drank so much.”

  “Oh yeah?” she replied, silencing her buzzing phone. She tossed it on the table, her attention firmly fastened on me.

  I shrugged and barreled onward. “I feel stir crazy. I have the urge to do… something. Right now I could jump out of my skin, but the damage is all already done. There’s nothing I can do to change the outcome. It’s already upon us. I’m literally living proof of it. Maybe keeping a basal rate of alcohol in your system just dulls the feeling of helplessness to a tolerable level.”

  “That’s why we have beer, Sam. Enough kick to take the edge off so that you can process all of this but not hard enough for you to forget.”

  “It’s probably for the best. Alcoholism doesn’t just run in my family, it carries the Olympic torch.” The moment I’d said it, the fallacy of the statement snapped back and hit me like a rubber band. Did it run in my family? Not on the Moore side. The fact of the matter was that I had no idea what ran in my father’s side of the family. I filed that little kernel away to chew on later.

  “You’ve got a lot to take in.” She responded levelly. I’d misjudged Annabelle when I made the snap decision that she had no filter. I’d fallaciously believed she always said what was on her mind. Presently, she could have gone head to head with any Harvard-educated arbitrator.

  “It explains why Trip can’t stand to be around Mama. And it explains why he was always their favorite,” I offered as our waitress delivered two baskets of piping hot wings. “Daddy…he must have sensed it…even before…”

  I picked up one of the wings and then set it back down on my plate. Then I drank deeply from my pint instead. My stomach already felt like I’d guzzled acid. The trust fund wasn’t even mine. It belonged to Trip…or Maisie. I was never destined to be the savior of the Beaumont business legacy; I wasn’t even a Beaumont. The mansion I grew up in wasn’t half mine; it was one hundred percent Trip’s because I was illegitimate. A bastard. ‘Born on the wrong side of the blanket’ as my grandmother used to say. Or was she my grandmother? I felt the blood rush from my face as I continued to fling open closet doors in my mind, and the skeletons just kept coming. I felt tears stinging my eyes, and I held them back.

  As if she could read my reeling mind, Annabelle shook her head at me.

  “Your father went through a lot of trouble to keep all this from you. To protect you. Those are the actions of a dad, Sam. Contributing DNA? That does not make someone a parent.” She slid out from her side of the booth, and with a flick of her head, motioning for me to scoot over. She joined me, resting her arm on the booth behind me. “That man you call ‘Daddy’ raised you as his own. He left you your inheritance as if you were his child. Your mother made her choices. He made his, too.”

  A warm feeling covered me like an electric blanket on a cold northern night. I wondered if this was because I actually believed her soothing words or because I’d just polished off my pint. Perhaps it was because she was inches from me, with her satin covered leg touching mine. For a moment, my mind wandered to what she was wearing under her impressive gown. Lace panties or a thong? Stockings and garter belts or bare legs? I was almost positive that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Clearing her throat, she turned to her beer and twirled a tendril of hair around her finger. The waitress appeared and swappe
d my empty pint for a full one. Embarrassed, I realized that I’d been staring at Annie again and looked away wondering if her beauty was to me what booze was to Trip. A distraction. A drug to ease my troubled mind. Maybe that was why I was so fixated on her. I tried to focus hard on what she’d just said.

  “You’re right. Daddy made a point to take Mama out of his will. It was the perfect time for him to do the same with me, and he didn’t. I’m not sure what to do with that. Or Mama. Or Trip…” The thought of Trip carrying this burden around with him for years suddenly gave me a tremendous feeling of shame.

  “You press on. We are who we are because of and in spite of our families. All we can do is learn from their mistakes. Use the strengths you inherited and overcome the weaknesses.” She said this all as if she was a boxing coach in my corner between rounds, indelicately and with more than a hint of condescension. She must have noticed my incredulous look, because she put down her beer, her eyes darting back and forth as if she were calculating the risk versus rewards of pressing on.

  “Things could be a lot worse, Sam. Everyone wanted to claim you. I never knew my father. I don’t remember him at all. He paid his child support, but never even tried to see me. My “mother”… well…” she scoffed, and the way her delicate features twisted for a moment chilled my blood. “She’s probably the single most selfish human being on the planet. I practically raised my brother and sister all by myself. I could have ended up on a milk carton or knocked up and calling the cops from the trailer park every Saturday night. There were times when I was headed in that direction. But I chose to use my childhood as a template for what not to do. As it is, I ditched my sister and brother to save myself.”

  My stomach fell as I listened to her. More tragic than her country ballad-style childhood was the frank way she laid it all out on the table. Her voice trembled slightly when she brought up leaving her siblings, but otherwise, she held herself proudly and without apology, chin up and shoulders back. I wanted to borrow her strength, her self-assurance. I was envious of these qualities and wished I could tap into them. And more than that, I felt the driving urge to unburden her so she never needed them for herself again.

  “You’re so courageous, Annabelle.”

  She sighed and turned back to her beer at my words, but I leaned forward and gently tilted her chin so that we were facing one another again. “It’s the truth. Learn to take a compliment.”

  “I’m not courageous. I did what I had to do to survive.” She sounded wispy and a bit breathless. Her skin practically hummed under my fingers and those amazing eyes of hers had a glassy, heavy quality that made me want to pay the check and take her home.

  I was unable to stop myself as I stroked her cheek with my thumb. “Is there a difference?”

  She turned away, focusing her attention on her food. I nearly cackled out loud when she shoved a napkin in her cleavage as a makeshift bib to protect her gown. Watching her dig enthusiastically into the bar food reignited my appetite. We mowed down on wings for a couple of minutes in complete silence. It was a surprisingly comfortable silence, unlike any experience I’d ever had with another human being. I rarely feel compelled to fill quiet with words, but most people seem to have a compulsion to do so. My motto? Only say something if you have something to add, not just to hear yourself talk. Annie seemed to lean toward my way of thinking.

  Eventually, she turned to me again, her brows knitted in contemplation. “Have you ever heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?”

  “Sure. In Sociology and Psych 101. Dealing with base needs like breathing, food, and shelter before you can worry about loftier needs like self-esteem and morality.”

  “Right. I’ve spent my whole life trying to get a handle on the lower rungs of the pyramid. Some might call that a disadvantage, but I think it’s given me a deeper appreciation for what little I do have because of it.”

  “I follow you. I have rich white boy problems.” I chuckled a bit in a self-depreciating way, and her lips twitched as if concealing amusement. She bit her lip which was wildly arousing and continued.

  “I believe that life is one-fourth genetic, one-fourth luck, one-fourth willpower, and one-fourth focus.” She stated, her conviction unwavering. “Being out of balance can completely screw up your equilibrium. I guess sometimes you have to overcompensate in the last two categories to keep your life on course while it’s careening down the side of the mountain.”

  I nodded, rolling her philosophy around in my head and trying it on to see how it fit. She pulled the napkin from her cleavage and wiped her hands with it.

  “Alright. You’ve got me sold. I think you missed your calling. You should have gone into business, Annabelle.”

  “You’re an easy sell, Sam,” she teased, and I was about to put my arm around her when the front door swung open and no less than twenty people shouted Trip’s name in unison. Trip gave the room a halfhearted wave and took a seat at the bar accepting a high five offered by the bartender.

  Five months sober or not, Trip still defaulted to his second bar rule. I let out an exasperated sigh. “Fuck.”

  “Shit.” Annie was out of her seat and at his side in a New York minute. I followed and quickly took the stool next to him in time to hear her ask, “What are you doing here, Trip?”

  “Hey…” It was evident we were the last people he expected to see. His color was high, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Why don’t we find someplace else to be?” Annie suggested. If there were any doubt in my mind that I was smitten with her, she abolished it with this one easy sentence. With the exception of Violet, Annie was the first woman who’d held my interest for more than a couple of hours. One might argue that I’d been hanging around the wrong women and likely be correct. But I was beginning to make peace with the fact that happenstance and fate factor largely in my life. I’m far from religious, but I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been sequestered by forces beyond myself until this moment in order to fully appreciate Annabelle’s uniqueness.

  “I’m pretty sure I belong right here. I appreciate your concern, Angel.” His self-depreciating smile felt hollow.

  “Come on, Trip. Tonight isn’t worth blowing five months over. Let’s get out of here.” I rocked my shoulder into his. He glanced at me doubtfully.

  “I should have told you right away. That night.”

  I shook my head at him. My words were firm. “It’s done. Let it go.”

  “Here’s your coffee, Trip. Sure you don’t want a little Irish in it?” The bartender asked, handing him a to-go cup. Annie’s surprised expression mirrored my own.

  “I’m sure. Keep the change, Paul,” he replied and stood, lifting his cup to his lips.

  “Well. I feel like an asshole.” Annie put a hand on her hip, and her relieved smile lit up the hazy bar.

  “Don’t. I would have assumed I was ordering a double.” Trip replied. “The limo is waiting for me out front. Are you ready to go home or…” Trip’s unanswered question hung above the three of us like a cloud. Her eyes flicked to me and back to Trip. He seemed to ask ‘are we continuing this charade, or can we call it a day?’

  “Sam knows.”

  Trip nodded. “Good. I’ve kept enough secrets from him to last a fucking lifetime.”

  “You go on ahead. I’m gonna drive him home.” She made a point of not looking at me when she said this. I exchanged a long pointed look with my brother.

  “Alright.” Though Trip didn’t smile, that one word of his was loaded with amusement.

  The bright morning sun seared through my closed lids. When I lifted my head from the pillow, the pain was overwhelming, like someone sticking icepicks into my brain. I rolled over with a groan and covered my head with the other pillow that smelled exactly like Anabelle. I groaned even louder as the details of the night crashed around me like marching band cymbals dropped from the ceiling.

  Once we got back to my car, she took my keys and climbed behind the wheel. She informed me we were going to h
er place. She claimed she’d decided I shouldn’t be alone and I wasn’t about to argue with her. When we arrived at her apartment, we could hear the familiar sound of Jayse once we entered the building.

  “Shit. I thought he was spending the night at the hotel. Maybe we should go to your place.” Annabelle frowned as we ascended the stairs.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Jayse is cool,” I murmured. Frown lines marred her perfectly sculpted face as she unlocked the door, and we stepped into a chorus of male voices shouting “Annie!” Dale and four additional members of Noteable were sitting around the kitchen table doing shots. After no less than six attempts to refuse, I was coerced into drinking two shots of Hot Damn and two shots of Absolut Citron. By the time Annie dragged me away into her bedroom, I was stumbling.

  “Unzip me.” She demanded and I grinned like a fool as I helped her out of her gown. To my surprise, she was wearing a bra underneath, but I couldn’t understand what the purpose of it was based on the tiny amount of material it contained. Matching black panties (the kind you could see through, praise God) were the only other things standing between me and her naked body. And for some baffling reason, it freaked me out a little.

  Before I knew what was happening, her hands were in my hair, and her lips locked on mine. The ferocity of her kisses left me struggling to breathe. This wasn’t at all how I pictured our first kiss, and believe me, I had pictured it many times. I wanted to take my time…to savor the taste of her. As it was, her teeth clanked against mine and I thought I tasted my own blood.

  She’d pushed me back on the bed and flipped off the lights. Then she was on me again, straddling me and grinding against me. I pulled away from her lips gasping for breath and her bra hit me in the face. I snatched it off and tossed it aside, and her hands went straight to my fly, tugging on my pants. Seconds later she had the zipper down, and my pants around my ankles. Her aggressiveness was hot, but more than a bit disturbing. The little blood left in my brain sounded warning sirens. Something was off here, and I needed to slam on the brakes.